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“Don’t Judge Me” Challenge Blows Up

Young people around the world, even in Senn itself, have taken part in a trend known as the “Don’t Judge!” challenge to promote the phase “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

The trend has been popular on social media platforms such as Vine, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The point of the challenge is to appear “ugly” before covering the camera to reveal themselves as beautiful or handsome. The trend began when a video titled “You Look Disgusting” was trending.

The challenge came under fire when people accused it of body shaming. People who took part in the trend usually wore glasses, had messy hair, and used marker on their face that resembled acne in order to look “ugly”. When they showed off their “beauty”, people wore a full face of makeup, wore little to no clothing, and had their hair nicely done.

A well known example of the “Don’t Judge!” Challenge

Many people believe the challenge actually promotes body shaming and creates a stereotype about what is considered beautiful and ugly. Esra Senyuz, a freshman, was the first to point out how potentially toxic the challenge is.

“It creates a stereotype for not only how you should be looking and how you shouldn’t look.” Senyuz said in the Senn cafeteria.

Others have been personally affected by the challenge and explain that a lot of the supposed “ugly” traits are things they have. Quinlan Moreno, a freshman, could relate to the first half of the challenge, but not once the person looked “beautiful”.

“Yes it has for me at least and I’m like that person looks to me…never mind.” Moreno said as she sat across from her friend Senyuz.

The challenge was meant to combat body shaming and meant to embrace to natural beauty, but people like sophomore Jose Martinez believe it did the exact opposite.

“I feel like the original purpose wasn’t,” Martinez said, “but I feel like people have been using it to body shame.”

Young people have mostly taken part in this trend and spoken out about it. However, nobody has been asking what the parents of these young people think about the effect of the trend. Nathaniel Smith, a chef and father of three, spoke about the types of people who may be negatively affected by the challenge.

“If you’re raised to have a strong mindset about you and actually love yourself for who you are then, you know, things like this won’t bother you,” Smith said, “but if you’re from a place where you’re having body issues and beauty issues this will affect you.”

Many young people have admitted that they have taken part in the challenge and thought it was just harmless fun. Some swear they will never do the challenge and shame it for it’s misguided message. Others still have no idea what the challenge is even about.

While people can’t agree on whether the “Don’t Judge!” challenge is even a good trend to begin with, we can all agree that this trend took the new generation and the whole world by storm.